WEST MEETS EAST: After half a century of exporting pop culture across the Pacific, Hollywood filmmakers are turning to Japan and belatedly discovering that the island nation has plenty to offer American audiences.

A mini-tsunami of Japanese-themed pictures began in September with the release of "Lost in Translation." Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson co- starred with the scene-stealing city of Tokyo, where the film was shot. Director Sofia Coppola set the movie in the Park Hyatt Tokyo, where she stayed during half a dozen trips before writing the "Translation" script. Audiences and critics have clearly responded to Coppola's portrait of Japan's capital city as a frenetic, alien-yet-familiar urban beehive. One of the top-grossing art-house films of the year, "Translation" has made $26 million, with Murray's performance generating considerable Academy Award buzz.

In October came the homage-o-rama "Kill Bill: Vol. 1," which writer- director Quentin Tarantino crammed with sly salutes to his favorite Japanese movies and TV shows. In the role of Uma Thurman's sword-crafting mentor, Tarantino cast Sonny Chiba, whom he'd idolized as a kid while watching him in the Japanese TV series "Shadow Warriors." Tarantino used Japan's Production I. G. company to create an extended anime action sequence, modeled Lucy Liu's Yakuza assassin on Japanese actress Meiko Kaji's trademark character Lady Snowblood, hired Japanese teen idol Chiaki Kuriyama to play Go Go Yubari after he saw her in Kinji Fukasaku's sci-fi cult film "Battle Royale," and outfitted Go Go with a schoolgirl outfit, lifting the wardrobe gimmick from Japan's TV series "Sukeban Deka." "Kill Bill's" name-that-influence game has played well at the box office; the film has taken in $65 million.

Opening Friday is Warner Bros.' Oscar-contending period piece "The Last Samurai," which represents director Ed Zwick's payback to Akira Kurosawa. Ever since he discovered Kurosawa's classic "The Seven Samurai" 30 years ago, Zwick has been intrigued with Japan's warrior class. The film will introduce American audiences to such unfamiliar faces as action hero Hiroyuki Sanada and actress Koyuki, who are major movie stars in Japan but are virtually unknown in the West.

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And next month Toni Collette stars in the bluntly titled "Japanese Story. " She plays a tough Australian businesswoman who reluctantly escorts her Japanese client (Gotaro Tsunashima) on a tour of the Australian Outback. The pair gradually overcome the East-West culture gap and discover a common bond in the desert. "I needed to find a Japanese man who would play that part in almost a stereotypical way and then unravel it," says "Japanese Story" director Sue Brooks. "In Australia we have this very complex relationship with Japan for trade, yet we never have embraced the idea of coming across physically and emotionally to that culture."

As with "Lost in Translation," "Japanese Story" gets comedic mileage out of the seemingly elaborate Japanese business-card ritual. "We Westerners see it as quite awkward and silly, but from a Japanese point of view, a business card is not something that has a few coffee stains on it and you pull out of your back pocket," says Brooks. "I'm not just handing over my name, I'm handing over centuries of names. It's a small gesture of how our two cultures are so opposed. And where you might see all this carrying on with business cards and politeness as a signature of weakness, in fact the opposite is true. Underneath is this iron will."

While casting and doing research for her film, Brooks visited Japan three times and always came away somewhat disoriented. "To go to a subway station where everyone knew how to flow with such grace through this sea of people, you're always feeling the odd one out, you feel a bit too big both physically and also in the way you express yourself. If you're Caucasian in Japan, you can learn Japanese and learn all the protocol, but you'll always be the gaijin , the foreigner."

RINGING IN THE TOURISTS: The grand New Zealand landscapes that figure so prominently in "The Lord of the Rings" films have helped make the nation a hot tourist destination. The number of visitors to New Zealand increased 7 percent last year after the December 2001 release of "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring." According to the New Zealand Tourism Research Council,

one out of 10 tourists surveyed said he decided to visit New Zealand because of seeing a "Lord of the Rings" film.

To remind travelers about their country's Middle Earth connection, Air New Zealand teamed with New Line Cinema on a novel "flying billboards" marketing plan. Last week, the airline's latest "Lord of the Rings" jet touched down in Los Angeles covered in an enormous decal featuring Viggo Mortensen, who plays the noble Aragorn in the trilogy.

Air New Zealand chief executive Ralph Norris is hoping that "Return of the King" will provide another bump in tourist traffic. "The final installment of this motion picture trilogy offers unparalleled opportunities for us to lift the profile of New Zealand, both as Middle Earth and also as a remarkable destination for today's travelers." To date, no hobbits have been sighted.